This movie is an action adventure film loosely based on one of the films from the Japanese samurai series Zatoichi. It stars Rutger Hauer as a blind Vietnam veteran who learns how to sword fight after being taken in by a small village. After he returns to America he finds himself protecting the son of another soldier who he served with in Vietnam from a gang of violent Reno gangsters.
It's campy, but totally badass. This is a genre and style of movie I wish could get updated for today.
The poster for Reggae Boys, which stars two of Nollywood's most famous stars.
The Nigerian movie industry also known as Nollywood produces about 2,500 movies a year. Which is about two and a half times as many films as Bollywood and over five times as many as Hollywood. The average Nollywood film costs between $17,000 and $25,000 US. The Nigerian film scene is fiercely low budget and DIY, but what makes it extremely interesting is the authenticity of the movies. This authenticity and proud African point of view is explored in depth in the documentary "Nollywood Babylon". This doc is one of the best written that I have seen in a long time.
I went to a really fun event last week at the The Cinefamily the venue is also known as "the silent movie theater". I hope that most of you in L.A. know about this great place.
The night sleepover party themed. The main event was a double feature of a film released in 1980 called Foxes. Which stars Jodie Foster and features a teenage skateboarding Scott Baio, and a creepy cradle robbing Randy Quaid.
This trailer does not do justice at all to the insane campy brilliance of this film's dialog.
Trailer:
If your parents bought you cigarettes as a teenager. If you ever got mixed up with a tranny named Burt. If you have ever gone toe-to-toe with a pimp on the boulevard. If you love Donna Summers or if you love the movie "Nowhere" by Gregg Araki even half as much as I do. This movie is a must.
You would get "Eyes of Laura Mars" (1978)Set in late 70's New York City, Laura Mars is tense, outragously stylish murder mystery starring Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones. Fashion photographer Laura Mars (Dunaway)is the rising star of chic. Growing in infamy and notoriety for her sexualized depictions of violence.
Mars' glamorous world of double popped collars and pouty fuchsia lips collides suddenly with savagery. When her increasingly vivid artistic visions begin to fortell the murders of her dearest friends. She struggles to understand what she is forced to see through a killers eyes -- before it is too late.
Love it!!!
Check out the opening song. Sung by Barbara Streisand, and it can't hurt that it features photography by Helmut Newton and is the first studio feature written by John Carpenter.
If a clear border between documentary and narrative movies exists. I think it lies between the fictional film Treeless Mountain and the documentary The Story of the Weeping Camel. Both of these films unfold quietly and delicately at their own pace.
The world of Treeless Mountain is so enveloping and complete, and the are scenes so precisely selected. It manages to use mood, delicate as a leaf's skeleton, as the storytelling engine of the movie. Which is a nearly impossible task to accomplish or explain.
Treeless Mountain Trailer:
Here is the director So Young Kim talking a little bit about the making of the movie:
Go, go Washington State Film! I went to the Los Angeles Film Festival last night to check out the movie ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was filmed in Port Gamble, WA. Having lived in the Northwest for 8 years I hold Washington near to my heart.
I enjoy horror, and zombie movies are my favorite because of their tendency to be serious social commentary delivered in an audience pleasing package of suspense, explosions, and gunfire. Going into this film I was a little worried that it was going to be too overtly political without the gore to back up the allegory. However, with the first bloody face peeling human slaughter I knew I had better get ready for the plasmagasm about to come.
Director Kevin Hamedani an American of Iranian heritage was inspired to make this film after the events of September 11th. When he witnessed a change in the treatment of Middle Eastern Americans within the United States. Ignorance of culture and the sudden increase in aggression directed toward this group of people concerned Hamedani, but he did not want to address this issue through a serious film. So, in the tradition George Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead) Hamedani uses the zombies as a device in his film to force his character's into small spaces where they would be forced to talk out larger social issues.
The tone of this social dialog is what is particularly refreshing about ZMD. Co-Writers Hamedani and Ramon Isao cleverly juxtapoz the tension of impending armageddon creeping in on the main characters with hilarious one-liners. The cast fires off rapid comedic quips, paired with campy slapstick gore that will make any Evil Dead fan titter with delight.
ZMD producer Yahya Sinno was hesitant to reveal in a Q&A the budget was less than $500,000 for the film. Which for the quality of the make-up, effects, and scenery is hard to believe. Although, at times the limitations of the budget could be felt, the film feels incredibly resourceful and intelligently produced. The filmmakers hardily and graciously thanked the Town of Port Gamble for their collaboration with the production.
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